Max Hardcore Offices Raided by FBI; Servers, Tapes Seized

ALTA DENA, Calif.  The offices of Max Hardcores Max World Entertainment were raided Wednesday under the authority of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Justice Department. The FBI seized five video titles, Hardcores attorney Jeffrey Douglas told XBiz, including (ed. movie titles ommitted)

Additionally, the FBI seized all servers belonging to Hardcore with the purpose of copying and returning them, Douglas said. It is not yet known what other office items have been taken as the investigation is ongoing.

By Thursday afternoon, Hardcore's servers had been returned and the website was active.

Hardcore was not present at the time of the raid, and according to Douglas, is presently attending a trade show in Barcelona, Spain.

Douglas said this is the first federal obscenity investigation involving Hardcore and is in any way related to 2257 record-keeping enforcement.

Once again the government is wasting tax dollars and otherwise invaluable law enforcement resources to try to force a minority view of morality on all of America, Hardcore said in a statement. Five of my movies have been targeted by the federal prude patrol. There is no indication of any crime to be alleged except obscenity. If indicted, I will fight to protect my liberty as well as the liberty of consenting adults to watch other adults engage in lawful, consensual, pleasurable sexual action. Shame on the Department of Justice. I am proud of my movies and of those who sell them.

In 2001, Hardcore was prosecuted by the city of Los Angeles for obscenity, which was not resolved until 2004 with a company plea to a public nuisance.

Born Paul Little in 1956, Hardcores films have long been considered some of the most controversial in the industry.

The site where this link is from is a buisiness site catering to the adult industry and to the best of my knowledge contains no pornographic images.

In 2001, Hardcore was prosecuted by the city of Los Angeles for obscenity, which was not resolved until 2004 with a company plea to a public nuisance.

When one is charged with obscenity in Los Angeles, you can bet the stuff is out there. I'm not going to plead ignorance to Hardcore's work. I have seen it. If you have never seen a Max Hardcore film, you have abolutely never seen anything like it. Watching this film was a stomach-churning experience. There was nothing arousing about it at all.

I'd be willing to bet that 99% of the population who enjoy pornography would find a film by Max Hardcore to be totally repulsive.

He's not well-liked within the industry for two major reasons. First, he scares away the new talent. Young women who find themselves in his films usually are new to the business and typically flee the industry after being subjected to the painful, wholly humiliating and degrading experience of working with this man. Second, he is indefensible. He epitomizes everything that those against pornography rally against. He makes Larry Flynt look like Walt Disney and your typical Vivid Video production look like wholesome family entertainment. That is no hyperbole.

Had the same thought. I don't buy into such things as Max peddles, but I'm still trying to figure out where the FBI became the Porn Police. I musta missed that article the last time I read the Constitution...

6
posted on 10/10/2005 1:14:40 PM PDT
by Dead Corpse
(Anyone who needs to be persuaded to be free, doesn't deserve to be. -El Neil)

I remember reading statistics on % of hotel guests who access porn from their rooms, and it was over 50%, as I recall. I think the story had to do with Rupert Murdoch, because he peddles that stuff to hotels everywhere. I just think it's a big fat waste of time, but some ppl like stuff like that: go after porn, go after marijuana, and pass anti flag burning amendments.

No, but there's a line in porn that shouldn't be crossed. I have no problem with mainstream, run-of-the-mill porn. These are your Vivid Video, the Adam and Eve, the companies that just produce regulare porn.

Max Hardcore, on the other hand (no pun intended LOL), borders on some devious s--t. I'm talking stuff you'll find in those "Faces of Deaths" films and other snuff pieces. Real heinous stuff that even most porn aficiondos find disgusting.

I'm not necessarily advocating that. Certainly this man knows enough to dot his "i's" and cross his "t's" when it comes to the work he does. I'm certain that he diligently verifies the ages of the actresses in his films. And certainly these actresses are adults and have no one but themselves to blame when they show up on the set of one of his films.

But to say he stretches the boundries is an understatement. He steps waaaaay over the line. It is difficult to say there is nothing wrong with adults enjoying pornography and then try to defend one of Max's films.

I really don't know. If he isn't breaking any laws, then he isn't breaking any laws. Truthfully, Max Hardcore's films were the inevitable evolution of an industry that is constantly trying to see how far it can go and what it can get away with.

Let me try to sum it up in language suitable for this forum. Young "girl-next-door" types (actresses range in age from 18 to 23 or so) wearing braces, pigtails and bright colored little-girl clothes and subjected to extremely humiliating, degrading and painful sex. It is not uncommon to see these actresses vomit and burst into tears while being filmed.

Either make the penalties so tough the porn industry dies (across the board) or forget about it. Anything else is just a bureaucrat keeping a chair warm. Black and white is efficient. Gray is one big waste of money.

interesting. That explains why the Child exploitation force of the FBI is doing this. Wasn't there a case recently that ruled that producing fictional representations of sex with underaged persons was a crime? Do you agree with that? Similarly, should fictional depictions of rape be allowed, or should that be banned too? It's a very weird area of thought crime we get into. I mean, I guess I am not too keen on obscenity laws. I think the public square should be kept family friendly, but I am not sure at what point we allow the gubmint to confiscate fictional materials.

Wasn't there a case recently that ruled that producing fictional representations of sex with underaged persons was a crime?

No. The opposite. SCOTUS ruled that FICTIONAL representation of underage children is legal. As an example, a 25 year old girl can legally pretend to be a 15 year old high school girl in a movie and it is not illegal. The law that was challenged would have made the person who made the film with the 25 year old guilty of child porn when clearly no children were involved. It was the correct ruling.

36
posted on 10/10/2005 1:37:51 PM PDT
by Phantom Lord
(Fall on to your knees for the Phantom Lord)

Here's a Wikipedia summary of his work: Max Hardcore. Yes, it sounds repulsive, but the last time I checked the First Amendment still begins "Congress shall make no law.." What part of "no law" is difficult to understand? If the state wants to deal with it, then fine, but the Feds have no constitutional authority. It seems that the State of California already dealt with it as they saw fit.

I am sure a man as scrupulous and conscientious as Mr. Hardcore is very meticulous about verifying the ages of the "performers" in his "productions".

One would think. However, the way the courts have begun to interpret the law, mens rea is unconstitutionally not required. Regardless of the due dilligence that may have been exercised, one can and will be convicted if a jury can be convinced that minors were filmed in a sexual context. Parents have been convicted for baby pictures; the children themselves have been convicted for autophotography.

Same problem exists when environmental laws are violated: ignorance and/or good faith errors are not permitted as defenses. In other words, criminal law has begun to be enforced as though it was merely administrative regulations (where mens rea is not required, but also where a civil fine is supposed to be the maximum penalty.)

The Framers didn't put an explicit requirement for mens rea into the Constitution, for two reasons. One is that it was so fundamental to Anglo-Saxon legal principles, they simply assumed it as a bedrock part of common law. But more importantly, they thought they had written a Constitution that severely restricted the authority of the Federal government, and that it was only authorized to criminalize a few things. Thomas Jefferson enumerated them in the Kentucky Resolutions:

... the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations, and no other crimes whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," therefore the act of Congress, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and intituled "An Act in addition to the act intituled An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States," as also the act passed by them on the -- day of June, 1798, intituled "An Act to punish frauds committed on the bank of the United States," (and all their other acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution,) are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory.

41
posted on 10/10/2005 1:40:31 PM PDT
by sourcery
(Givernment: The way the average voter spells "government.")

Thanks. I knew it came up. I couldn't recall the details. Was it a diary or something? Anyway, I just think it's bizarre to start criminalizing fantasy and fiction, no matter how twisted you or I might think it is. Don't you? Isn't this a bit much? You hate to have to defend this sort of stuff, but there has to be a line somewhere, no?

It is. Personally, if the actress is 18 or older, she is allowed to act in an X-rated film. Period. That's the law. When we start getting into the "fictional representation of children" it becomes subjective. What exactly constitutes dressing like or looking like or "fictionally representing" a child?

However, in Max's films, no effort is spared to make his actresses appear as child-like as possible.

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.